He was named after Onessimus, a runaway slave who became one of the early Xstian saints. My eldest uncle died yesterday. Uncle One (pronouned 'Onay,') had suffered serious strokes and was suffering from advanced Alzheimers. When asked how he was, his wife would say, rather curtly, 'Like a baby.'

Her sharpness of tone was perhaps understandable. One was a very intelligent man,affable and good humoured, peace-loving, financially astute, artistic, wise. When I was a child I had some little daubs he put together, simple but very good. I don'tknow where they went.

The last time I saw him was a few years back at a cousin's wedding. He had just suffered some kind of heart attack/stroke and though he sat there gamely, being genial to everyone, you could see breathing came hard and his words were slow.

But he looked at me, and gave me a wink, not sleazy,just nice, and his old wide kind smile.